It can be difficult to measure interest in a video game in meaningful terms, but let's try anyway. Let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of interest in Ghostbusters: The Video Game in the North American area. Based on this morning's reading, it would be a Twinkie thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds. That's a big Twinkee, and it can only mean one thing: today is the day that Ghostbusters finally releases. Now, I've been going on and on and on about this game ever since it was just a rumored little project from a dubious developer that didn't actually have the Ghostbusters license, so it seems only appropriate today to take a look back at all of my Ghostbusters ramblings.

While the company didn't have a chance at landing the rights to the property, all of that Internet commotion must have captured someone's attention, because one month later franchise co-creator and the man behind Ray Stantz himself, Dan Aykroyd, announced that he'd locked up the Ghostbusters video game rights and was planning a new project. Indeed, by this point, Terminal Reality was already one year into development on it. Everything went silent until November 2007 when what we know today as Ghostbusters: The Video Game was officially revealed along with the news that Aykroyd and Harold Ramis were working on the story. Vivendi Sierra was set to publish.

Little details about the project began to slip out in the weeks that followed. The inclusion of film villains Gozer the Gozarian and Vigo the Carpathian was announced in December of that year, although their exact roles remained a mystery for the moment. With all of the creative talent working on the project, it became evident that Ghostbusters needed to be good in order to show that it is possible to create a well-crafted, enjoyable game based on a popular film. Thankfully, everything seemed to be moving smoothly on the development side, while the audience was certainly eager.

The other shoe dropped in July 2008 when Vivendi Sierra was gobbled up by Activision/Blizzard who then, in turn, passed on the rights to publish the game. Too much was riding on the game's success at this point for it to completely disappear into cancellation limbo, so it was only a matter of time and money until another published picked up the project. The game continued development during its time as an "orphaned" property, but fans of the series began to worry when early August led to the news that the game was going to be delayed until the far-off future date of June 2009 in order to sync with the original film's twenty-fifth anniversary. Further spooking the gaming community was the revelation that GameStop — a retailer that never met a pre-order option it didn't like — began canceling pre-orders for the game later that month. All of this behind-the-scenes musical chairs led to some awkward marketing efforts, such as inaccurate advertising teasing the game nearly one year ahead of its new release date.

With all of this uncertainty stirring up concerns, somebody close to the game had to come forward and assure the world that it was still on the way. That somebody ended up being Dan Aykroyd, once again teasing that the game was in the works and casually announcing in October that Atari had picked up the rights. Some may have questioned hearing gaming news from a typically non-gaming source, but plenty of people out there were ready to believe him. Less than one month later, new screenshots of the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 versions of the game reached the Internet, calming worries and setting anticipation back on track. Bringing an exciting year to a close in December, a new trailer of the game in action gave us our first looks at the digital versions of beloved characters Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, and Winston Zeddemore.

Comments

Ghostbusters: The Video Game Manifests In Our Dimension

It can be difficult to measure interest in a video game in meaningful terms, but let's try anyway. Let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of interest in Ghostbusters: The Video Game in the North American area. Based on this morning's reading, it would be a Twinkie thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds. That's a big Twinkee, and it can only mean one thing: today is the day that Ghostbusters finally releases. Now, I've been going on and on and on about this game ever since it was just a rumored little project from a dubious developer that didn't actually have the Ghostbusters license, so it seems only appropriate today to take a look back at all of my Ghostbusters ramblings.